How much do you appreciate ingame music, and name your favorites please!

[Marius]

My top #5 Atari ingame Music is:

 

#1 Space Harrier

#2 Flowers Mania

#3 Line runner

#4 Mental Age

#5 Johny's Trouble

 

Oh and when it comes to non Atari ingame music...

 

One of the best tunes (which could have been pokey!) I know is the music in The Smurfs on the gameboy classic.

 

 

[Marius]

Oh and I have to mention... that I love real chiptunes (without samples) most!

[emkay]

No Answer here.

Why?

Because sometimes the ingame music is none. It's just some tunes assembly of POKEY noise.

Sometimes it is unexpected sounding good.

But "Music" is something with a definition, which is missed in most cases. This is why people who weren't related to old Atari times, still keep distant to productions that run on Atari Machines.

It's even more disturbing, that people gather around the Atari, who "like" the detuned sound of standard POKEY tunes.

What's the problem with it, you ask?

Well, it keeps real interested people distant to the Atari. People, whom liked to code but want to get some satisfying graphics and SOUND for their work.

Got it?

[Flojomojo]

Moon Patrol

Elevator Action

Popeye

Venture

Frogger

Pepper II

Spy Hunter

A.P.B.

Frenzy! (on the Colecovision)

Wipeout XL

Jet Set Radio Future

Star Wars Arcade (Atari, 1983 ... though all the other SW games naturally have great tunes. TIE FIGHTER!!)

 

that's probably enough. I like in-game music!!

[Flojomojo]

BTW for the people who get annoyed by repetitive music, watch this awesome video that explains the ways the ditty in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins changes in the different stages. BRILLIANT.

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well, it's somewhat hard to decide for me between a) I am not a fan..., b) it's okay, but... and c) oh yes,... Voted for "oh yes..." at the moment. My main problem is, that I am hard-hearing and if I turn up the volume on my Hi-Fi system or my A8 and tv quite a lot, my wife, the kids or the neighbours do complain. If I do not turn up the volume, I only hear a small part of the sound (surprisingly the very low and very high sounds/notes).

 

Headphones? Yes, I have them, but when using them, my wife always tells me that she can hear the music as if I would play it thru the speakers in normal volume. That's why I never listen to music with headphones on a bus or a subway or a train, the passengers would complain for sure (and when a friend took my headphone while it played music, he could not believe how loud it was). Hearing-aid? Yes, I do have them, but they are of no use to me, since my hard-hearing is caused by brain damage. (When I was 5 years old, a VW bus drove over me and damaged my skull and the left half of my brain, I have been lucky enough to survive this.)

 

So, most of the time, if the A8 program does not have an option to turn off the sound, I use my tv option and turn off the sound and listen to some rock or pop music (60s/70s/80s) from my old hifi stereo system. Hard to believe that I still upgraded my Ataris to stereo and I'm still interested in a covox sound upgrade. So, if you ever wondered why these MP3 recordings of A8 games and demos do sound strange, it's because they have been recorded by someone who is hard-hearing... http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/CharlieChaplin/SNDVID/

Edited May 18, 2018 by CharlieChaplin

[+DrVenkman]

No love for M.U.L.E.?

 

So yeah, M.U.L.E., Seven Cities of Gold, Gyruss, Ballblazer, Dig Dug ... Man, I love me some in-game music.

[erichenneke]

most of the time... not so much, but some that stand out to me...

 

necromancer

 

alley cat

 

again, not so much because the music is so amazing on their own, but it just really adds to the experience for me on those games.

[erichenneke]

oh, and definitely agree with moon patrol for the same reason.

[baktra]

I can enjoy good SFX too, but these are my BG music favorites:

 

Syn Boga Wiatru

Fred

Zbir

Nexus (Sikor Soft)

Cyborg (Sikor Soft)

Magic Dimension

[Gunstar]

I didn't vote because nothing fit for me. The forth down is the closest, but really it all depends on the game and the music. Some games have great music and some don't, I love the music when it's good and leave it on, if not, I shutit off if I can. In game, if it's a choice between music and sound effects, I'll pick SFX. The song needs to be good and more than a few seconds of looped song or it gets old quick.

[Marius]

BTW for the people who get annoyed by repetitive music, watch this awesome video that explains the ways the ditty in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins changes in the different stages. BRILLIANT.

 

 

Did you ever play Secret of Monkey Island II .... that has a very brilliant music system too. There is a main theme on the roads in the village, but as soon as you enter one of the houses/places next to one of the roads, the music slowly changes, but the main theme still keeps 'alive'... it is pretty amazing how they did that too.

[Marius]

My main problem is, that I am hard-hearing

 

Hey, this is a response I did not expect when I created the poll/thread. Sorry to read about this, and I appreciate it that you did share it.

 

Is it a progressive problem, or will it stay the way it is now?

[+Nezgar]

Monster Smash (looking at title screen just now explains it "With music from Paradise" - Being Datasoft, that could only be the Philip Price/crew of Alternate Reality!)
Rescue on Fractalus
Master of the Lamps
Alternate Reality(s)
Pitfall II
Up'n'down
Temple of Apshai Trilogy
Claim Jumper
Drol
Trains
Necromancer
Dimension X
Moon Matrol
Frogger I/II
Ultima III

I could probably transcribe most of these from childhood memory still....

Edited May 18, 2018 by Nezgar

[Fox-1 / mnx]

I can only think of one as far as talking in-game, which is "A Forest" from "the Cure" as used in the game "Trix". All others aren't in-game, like "Saltarello" from "Miecze Valdgira", to just name one..

[adam242]

...The forth down is the closest, but really it all depends on the game and the music. Some games have great music and some don't, I love the music when it's good and leave it on, if not, I shutit off if I can. In game, if it's a choice between music and sound effects, I'll pick SFX. The song needs to be good and more than a few seconds of looped song or it gets old quick.

 

^this. I picked option 3, but am probably closer to option 2. A few that I love:

 

Elektraglide

World Karate Championship

Ninja

Pitfall II

Yoomp!

 

I am much more a SFX fan, and almost always turn the music off when I have the choice.

[+Cafeman]

Constant repeating music from the 8bit era almost always gets annoying to me. This unfortunately applies to homebrew too. At first, many times I was amazed at the cool techno beats that many have created using RMT , but after a while the Pokey sound quality tends to become very grating to me if a song is loud and full and repeats. I like games to mostly have game sounds , incidental music, and level begin/ending brief musical ditties.

 

I do like the music from arcade Moon Patrol, Rally X, Frogger, and Dig Dug though, so maybe the style of in game tunes has a bearing.

[Rybags]

The music off option is always appreciated. But music is usually preferable to none.

 

In no particular order and probably omitting some - recent top 5 includes Cropki, Line Runner, Ridiculous Reality, Marbled, His Dark Majesty.

Older games tended to have less ingame music but often had good music for the title screen only so it'd be unfair to exclude those.

Mentions to MULE, International Karate, Spelunker, Nautilus, Red Max.

[pixelmischief]

1. Yoomp

2. Ball Blazer

3. Conan

4. Assembloids

5. Goonies

[Marius]

Thanks for all those replies. Great to see all the diversity. One thing though, some games mentioned do not have ingame music, but only a title screen music. Still cool, but it was not what I intentionally meant. No problem though, every fabulous tune can be mentioned. And no I've read the answers, I really want to add some more to my list...

 

Yoomp (how could I forget about this one, it's amazing indeed!),

Elektra Glide (oh, I love that tune... I hate it, that it starts over everytime you crash/hit something),

Conan (really myserious and interesting),

Moon Patrol indeed,

ASSEMBLOIDS (YES!!), ...

In the Goonies I Especially love the tune from opening/scene #2, unfortunately that never gets back in the game. Did you know btw. that there is a cassette version of the game with a different tune here?

 

One last thing... the creator(s) of Spy's Demise also understood that tunes need to 'cycle'... there is quite some cool background music in that game too. I love all those songs in 'minor key' ... Great game too btw.

 

I think KJMANN created absolutely stunning music in Space Harrier. That music is an excellent port of the original, and it has different parts in different scenes.

[emkay]

Gyruss

Moon Patrol

Master of the Lamps

 

Amaurote

Ninja

 

Plastron

Rockman

 

Newer games:

 

Ocean Detox

Thetris

Yoomp!

[AMenard]

Not on the Atari, but I always loved the C64 Commando sid tune.

[+x=usr(1536)]

For Atari 8-bit music, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned The Last V8 yet. Always thought that apart from being a very well-done chiptune, it fit well with the scenario that the game was set in.

 

Oh, and the first Spy vs. Spy game. Something about that one really got into my head when I was a kid, and I occasionally find myself humming bits of it.

 

I don't consider in-game music to necessarily be a must-have, but for some games it definitely is. Gyruss and Moon Patrol were already mentioned, and they're also titles where the music adds to the gameplay.

[xxl]

1. Spy vs Spy 2,1,3

2. The Goonies

3. Ninja

4. Jet Set Willy

[Schlortt]

Mr. Do and Mountain King. I remember liking the music in Tail of Beta Lyrae.

 

I enjoy the title screen music in Spider so much that I spent much more time on the title screen than I ever did playing the game. I assume the last option in your poll was offered in jest but it would have applied to Spider for me if the music had been in game.